When to make the transition...

[Madbiker]

whoa!!!
a moqui sighting?!?!?

Yep. JB's system has worked well for 40 years and a model of consistency that made Syracuse a near elite program. When he's gone it will inevitably change. And the results from that are uncertain.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Yep. JB's system has worked well for 40 years and a model of consistency that made Syracuse a near elite program. When he's gone it will inevitably change. And the results from that are uncertain.

JB hasn't had just one system for 40 years. When he took over, we pressed a lot, played man and zone about equally, and we ran motion sets on offense, not so damn much pick and roll. We ran a lot more fast break, we threw a lot of lob passes and were exciting on offense. His style has changed a lot over the years. He didn't go pretty much exclusively zone until 1996. He didn't go so pick-and-roll on offense until he got Jonny Flynn. He has won a lot of different ways over the years; more than people realize.

 

[Alsacs]

JB hasn't had just one system for 40 years. When he took over, we pressed a lot, played man and zone about equally, and we ran motion sets on offense, not so damn much pick and roll. We ran a lot more fast break, we threw a lot of lob passes and were exciting on offense. His style has changed a lot over the years. He didn't go pretty much exclusively zone until 1996. He didn't go so pick-and-roll on offense until he got Jonny Flynn. He has won a lot of different ways over the years; more than people realize.

Also in the 96 championship game we did not play exclusively zone.
We mixed it up.
JB has let our offense completely decompose to nothing but 1 on 1 ISO ball and has developed just one season of productive post offense since Rick Jackson graduated in 2011. Rak Christmas in 2014 his senior year.
He has become overdependent on winning games with his defense that our margin for error has become tiny.

 

[realorange]

If you think the zone is an issue right now, let Gillon, Coleman and White play M2M and you'd wish you'd never mentioned it.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Also in the 96 championship game we did not play exclusively zone.
We mixed it up.
JB has let our offense completely decompose to nothing but 1 on 1 ISO ball and has developed just one season of productive post offense since Rick Jackson graduated in 2011. Rak Christmas in 2014 his senior year.
He has become overdependent on winning games with his defense that our margin for error has become tiny.

I don't remember that to be the case, but I haven't watched that particular game in years. We only played 6.5 players that year, maybe 7, and we didn't have any quickness at guard. Granted it's been 20 years, but my recollection was that year cemented his image as the "new" respected Boeheim who played pretty much exclusively 2-3 zone and had the pretty young wife.

 

[Alsacs]

I don't remember that to be the case, but I haven't watched that particular game in years. We only played 6.5 players that year, maybe 7, and we didn't have any quickness at guard. Granted it's been 20 years, but my recollection was that year cemented his image as the "new" respected Boeheim who played pretty much exclusively 2-3 zone and had the pretty young wife.

We made our 2nd half run in man to man.
We played zone primarily though.

 

[Moontan]

Still looking for things to click before all too long... setting up a nice ACC tourney run, finishing up with 2 wins in Arizona... allowing JAB to go out on top.

 

[OttoMets]

You'll miss him when he's gone. You have no idea how much.

Syracuse basketball is Jim Boeheim. The Dome helped, the rise of the Big East helped, but Boeheim was the real difference. In college basketball, a great coach can make all the difference, and for most of his run Boeheim was one of the four or five best minds in all of college hoops. Lucky for SU fans, he was a local and a lifer, otherwise SU would not have been able to afford him and he would have left long ago.

Absent him, Syracuse runs the risk of becoming Providence or Seton Hall or any other small, private Northeast school. A local power that on occasion, if everything fell into place, could make a nice run. And, when that happens, the coach gets courted by big schools with deep pockets and bolts. A vicious circle: Steppingstone University. Look at SU's traditional, regional peers – Georgetown post-Thompson, Uconn post-Calhoun, St. John's post-Carnesseca. It's hard to hit that kind of homerun twice. Villanova was a middling program post-Massimino until they got lucky with Wright, who also looks to be a lifer.

SU fans better pray that Hopkins is a winner, because he, too, is a lifer. Even if Hop is everything you hope, it likely will be into the next decade before Syracuse will be able to consistently compete at the highest levels again. And if he's not all that . . .

If he fails, then Syracuse becomes just another program. Then you're looking for a coach with a limited budget – any money the AD has will be dedicated to keeping Babers & his staff, because football drives the bus, even at a basketball school.

All that being said, it is time for Boeheim to go. The NCAA sanctions were designed to hamstring Syracuse, and that's exactly what they've done. And those sanctions were richly deserved. I scoffed at the notion that the Orange deserved punishment for the drug policy thing and the YMCA stuff, and maybe they wouldn't have been . . . if not for the Fab Melo stuff. That was unconscionable. The Athletic Director chairing a meeting seeking extraordinary intervention to keep eligible a clearly ineligible player? It was outrageous. It is nearly the worst kind of violation a program can have – a complete abdication of educational responsibility. If anyone ever deserved a show cause penalty, it was Daryl Gross; its stunning to me that he didn't get one, probably only because it was JB they really wanted. And Boeheim deserves condemnation, too, for his studious efforts to keep plausible deniability on things, even when he probably really did know that something underhanded was up. Reading that report turned me off on Boeheim, and the “our poop doesn't stink” attitude of SU fans turned me off of SU basketball. I still follow it; I still lurk here from time to time, but it will never again be the same for me. It's almost Faustian – the obsessive pursuit of that 2nd title has instead put a stake into the heart of the program.

Good to see you back here - and this is a great take.

 

[AZOrange]

Good to see you back here - and this is a great take.

Agreed!

 

[br801]

You'll miss him when he's gone. You have no idea how much.

Syracuse basketball is Jim Boeheim. The Dome helped, the rise of the Big East helped, but Boeheim was the real difference. In college basketball, a great coach can make all the difference, and for most of his run Boeheim was one of the four or five best minds in all of college hoops. Lucky for SU fans, he was a local and a lifer, otherwise SU would not have been able to afford him and he would have left long ago.

Absent him, Syracuse runs the risk of becoming Providence or Seton Hall or any other small, private Northeast school. A local power that on occasion, if everything fell into place, could make a nice run. And, when that happens, the coach gets courted by big schools with deep pockets and bolts. A vicious circle: Steppingstone University. Look at SU's traditional, regional peers – Georgetown post-Thompson, Uconn post-Calhoun, St. John's post-Carnesseca. It's hard to hit that kind of homerun twice. Villanova was a middling program post-Massimino until they got lucky with Wright, who also looks to be a lifer.

SU fans better pray that Hopkins is a winner, because he, too, is a lifer. Even if Hop is everything you hope, it likely will be into the next decade before Syracuse will be able to consistently compete at the highest levels again. And if he's not all that . . .

If he fails, then Syracuse becomes just another program. Then you're looking for a coach with a limited budget – any money the AD has will be dedicated to keeping Babers & his staff, because football drives the bus, even at a basketball school.

All that being said, it is time for Boeheim to go. The NCAA sanctions were designed to hamstring Syracuse, and that's exactly what they've done. And those sanctions were richly deserved. I scoffed at the notion that the Orange deserved punishment for the drug policy thing and the YMCA stuff, and maybe they wouldn't have been . . . if not for the Fab Melo stuff. That was unconscionable. The Athletic Director chairing a meeting seeking extraordinary intervention to keep eligible a clearly ineligible player? It was outrageous. It is nearly the worst kind of violation a program can have – a complete abdication of educational responsibility. If anyone ever deserved a show cause penalty, it was Daryl Gross; its stunning to me that he didn't get one, probably only because it was JB they really wanted. And Boeheim deserves condemnation, too, for his studious efforts to keep plausible deniability on things, even when he probably really did know that something underhanded was up. Reading that report turned me off on Boeheim, and the “our poop doesn't stink” attitude of SU fans turned me off of SU basketball. I still follow it; I still lurk here from time to time, but it will never again be the same for me. It's almost Faustian – the obsessive pursuit of that 2nd title has instead put a stake into the heart of the program.

Good stuff, although I don't believe the future of the program is as potentially bleak as you've suggested it might be.

Happy holidays & hope to see you posting again.

 

[tbonezone]

JB hasn't had just one system for 40 years. When he took over, we pressed a lot, played man and zone about equally, and we ran motion sets on offense, not so damn much pick and roll. We ran a lot more fast break, we threw a lot of lob passes and were exciting on offense. His style has changed a lot over the years. He didn't go pretty much exclusively zone until 1996. He didn't go so pick-and-roll on offense until he got Jonny Flynn. He has won a lot of different ways over the years; more than people realize.

if we were in fact going outside the system to find a proven winner (my choice) then boeheim gets free rein til the very end. if the plan all along has been to hand the joystick over in house to a 20 + year guy mike hopkins then by now the transition should be about 75 % complete. hopkins won't be afforded the same clean slate as an outside hire. if things aren't already in place when he takes over then it's his own damn wimpy ass fault. no pass.

 

[realorange]

if we were in fact going outside the system to find a proven winner (my choice) then boeheim gets free rein til the very end. if the plan all along has been to hand the joystick over in house to a 20 + year guy mike hopkins then by now the transition should be about 75 % complete. hopkins won't be afforded the same clean slate as an outside hire. if things aren't already in place when he takes over then it's his own damn wimpy ass fault. no pass.

I would assume the transition has been going on for years. And to say that Hop is "wimpy ass" is far from the truth and really low class on your part.

 

[br801]

I would assume the transition has been going on for years. And to say that Hop is "wimpy ass" is far from the truth and really low class on your part.

Exactly. Anyone who has been paying attention or has had any contact with Hop would find that notion ridiculous.

 

[tbonezone]

well then tell me what % of this team is truly a reflection of hopkins new direction ? if he ain't stepping up by now then next christmas is too late.

 

[realorange]

well then tell me what % of this team is truly a reflection of hopkins new direction ? if he ain't stepping up by now then next christmas is too late.

It is JB's team until he retires. He said it last year when he was on coaching probation and would say the same today.

 

[tbonezone]

well then from an institutional perspective that's just purely asinine. smooth transition means gradually shifting control over time. so hire a leader .

 

[br801]

well then from an institutional perspective that's just purely asinine. smooth transition means gradually shifting control over time. so hire an outsider.

He has been assuming more responsibility over time. I recall JB noting recently that Hop now more or less runs the practices. Still, on game day this is JB's team, as it should be for as long as he is at the helm.

 

[realorange]

well then from an institutional perspective that's just purely asinine. smooth transition means gradually shifting control over time. so hire a leader .

You are wrong. You can't have two people to take the ultimate responsibility for the team. Or for most any other group, company or organization. This is not management by committee.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

well then tell me what % of this team is truly a reflection of hopkins new direction ? if he ain't stepping up by now then next christmas is too late.

What would you like Hopkins to do?

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

if we were in fact going outside the system to find a proven winner (my choice) then boeheim gets free rein til the very end. if the plan all along has been to hand the joystick over in house to a 20 + year guy mike hopkins then by now the transition should be about 75 % complete. hopkins won't be afforded the same clean slate as an outside hire. if things aren't already in place when he takes over then it's his own damn wimpy ass fault. no pass.

Who are the proven winnners out there that we could go find? Shaka Smart? He just lost at home to Kent State.

 

[pearl31]

Who are the proven winnners out there that we could go find? Shaka Smart? He just lost at home to Kent State.

6-6 on the year!

 

[tbonezone]

by this point of transition i'd hope that it's been made crystal clear that they are now equals and future decisions go through hopkins.

 

[AlpharettaCuse]

by this point of transition i'd hope that it's been made crystal clear that they are now equals and future decisions go through hopkins.

They are not equals. Boeheim is the head coach, Hopkins is an assistant coach. You can't have two head coaches.

 

[br801]

They are not equals. Boeheim is the head coach, Hopkins is an assistant coach. You can't have two head coaches.

One head coach at a time, just like we have one President at a time. No, wait...

 

[tbonezone]

syracuse is more like cuba. one supreme presidente for 40 years and then hand the reins over to his little brother who's been there 30 years.